How Turkish Empire Should Be Made After The War -nyt19150124

HOW TURKISH EMPIRE SHOULD BE MADE AFTER THE WAR

January 24, 1915

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES BY A STUDENT OF TURKISH AFFAIRS.
Turkey has the second largest share of responsibility in the outbreak of the war,for the reason that her unspeakable system of rule forced the Balkan war, which resulted in the Austro-Servian controversy. Her continued hopeless incapacity in the government of her extensive territories excited the greed and ambitions of the powera and made her a bone of contention among them. It is a well-known fact that the maintenance of the Turkish political entity for the last 200 years has been made possible by the rivalry of the Great Powers. The history of the Turk has been uniformly marked with blood, fire and destruction. His success was imposaible from the very beginning of his power. During the chaos and anarchy incident largely to religious dissensions, crusaders' movements, political upheavals, to which the Eastern World was subjected in the Middle Ages he emerged from the confines of Central Asia a primitive barbarian,and having been converted to the faith of Islam, he carried, wherever he went, the green flag that rejected all compromise and defied all canons of Germany and, in his irresistible sweeping march, conquered a dozen or more principalities. His power in Asia,in Africa,and in Europe rested on the cruel support of his sword. The civilization of his subject races he could not comprehend so he left them separate and distinct in the administration of their church and educational affairs. But the very moment he saw signs of progress in the activities of his subjects and a revival of national aspirations, he adressed himself to the support of steel and powder. Once he reached the height of his power and his rule seemed to be secure from external aggression, he reverted to his natural life of last and sonseous indulgence. Utterly devoid of the sense of justice and wanting in administrative knowledge, the rule he inaugurated has always been characterised by official indolence and incompetency and shameful graft and corruption. Always in the minority, without any social system of his own, with a religion in eternal conflict with that of his subject races, sensuous, lustful, indolent, deceitful, and incorrigible, ge was doomed to utter failure from the very beginning.

Without going very far back, if we review tersely the nature of the Turk's existence in the twentieth century, we can easily gain a sufficient grasp of his character. The intolerable nature of his rule forced the Servian insurrections in 1804 and 1817, the Grecian massacres in 1821, and the Russo-Turkish war in 1828, when Greece, a wretched Turkish province, broke loose from the Turkish rule and Servia became autonomous; the massacres of Maronite Christians in1860; the massacres of Christians in Bulgaria , Bosnia-Herzegovinain 1877; the Armenian massacres in 1894 and 1896; the Greco-Turkish war in1898; the Macedonian massacres in 1903 again Armenian massacres in Cecilia in 1909, during the power of Young Turk, present sufficiently the ghastly picture of what the Turk has been. He not only smothered the economic and intellectual sources of the East, but he became imprenetrable barrier between East and West.TO the humiliation of Christendom, it should be said that the Turkish nuisance would have been impossible wereit notfor the cruel diplomacy of Great Powers of Europe, whose diplomacy has been influenced not by human considerations, but by considerations of national gain and prestige. And this despite the fact that the senselessness of this sort of diplomacy was proved in many instance, in that no one power could maintain a long lease of power at Constantinople without being betrayed at the psychological moment in favor of another power.

Only recently, in the course of conversation with a leading member of the Turkish Cabinet, I expressed by serious doubt if the Turkish Empire could ever be reformed through the Turkish element. It is to be noted that, out of an estimated population of 20,000,000 in the Turkish Empire not over 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 are Turks. In European Turkey and Anatolia, where the bulk of the Turkish element is to be found the Turk is in the minority. The Greek and the Armenian, who combined are about five millions. In equal number are admittedly superior to the Turk morally and intellectually. They are consummate merchants and financiers, industrious, and progressive. The Jew And the Christian Arab , known to us as the Syrian , are the poers of the Greek and the Armenian. The Greek and the Armenian represent about 25%. of the population of Turkey. They control about 70% of its commerce, whereas the Turk constitute about 30% of the population of Turkey and he controls about 10%of its commerce. In education,he is incomparably far behind the Greek and Armenian. As a Mohammedan , he he does not intermingle socially with the Christian race, and therefore, he cannot assume his rightful place in the leadership of the social system.

It is hard to see how a proud German Empire could engage in serious business with this adventurers, upstarts, deceitful and crafty visionaries, who in the course of seven years, plunged their country into four foreign wars, and lost one-fourth of their possessions, and now give excellent promise og reducing the once gigantic Turkish Empire into a miniature principality in this momentous conflict, for centuries a source of perpetual international complication and unending human sufferings, the Turkish Empire should be apportioned among the principle race that inhabit it, which, by tradition history, and their known fitness for self- government, are entitled to recognition among the Great Powers, who in the course of centuries, have fixed for themselves by common consents pheres of influence. To wit: TURKEY
Square
Miles
Ismid...........................3,100
Bigha...........................2,600
Brussa.........................25,000
Castamuni......................20,000
West Angora, West Kizil Irmak..12,000
West Koneih....................21,500
East Smyrna.....................6,000
______
Total........................ 92,050

SYRIA, FRENCH PROTECTORATE.
Aleppo south of Beilan on the east,
inclusive, and south of Urfan on
the west, inclusive....................22,500
Beirut, exlusive of Palestine...........3,200
Syria, north of Damascus, inclusive....15,000
Lebanon.................................1,160
Zor, west of Euphrates.................11,000
______
Total................................ 52,860

JUDEA
Beirut, south of Lebanon................3,000
Syria, south of Damascus...............22,000
Jerusalem, exclusive if city and en-
virons..................................4,500
______
Total................................ 29,500

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION
Jerusalem and environs..................2,000

RUSSIA
Trebizonde............................13,000
Erzerume..............................19,300
Van...................................15,000
Bitlis................................10,500
Diarbekir.............................15,000
Moussoul, north of Little Zab. begin
ning from east of Tigris..............20,000
A strip begining of the western angle
of Diabekir and bounded on the north
by Euphrates and on the south by a line
north of Urfah, then running wester-
ly to Alexandretia....................5,000
______
Total.............................. 97,600

DARDANELLES
Especially the Straits of the Darda-
nelles should be of fortifi-
cations: they should not be used as
a naval base by any power in the
time of peace or war ; the merchant
and war vessels of all nations should
have the rightof the Dardanelles
on equal conditions.

I will now offer brief explanations for the reasons of the territorial adjustments proposed above.

The part of Turkey in Europe allotted for bulgaria, and the proposed arrangement for the remaining portion of Turkey in Europe, including Constantinople, require no explanation.

As for the territories to be assigned to an independent Turkey, the following reasons should be sufficient:

More than fifty per centum of the Turkish element in the Turkish Empire are to be found within the boundaries of the territories assigned for Turkey. The first two capitals of the Turks are to be found within its borders. For cemmercial purposes, the ?? are unexcelled, in that they command extensive frontages on the Black Sea, and of the Mediterranean. The soil of every foot of the land assigned for Turkey is excellent for agriculture.